Assistiv builds assistive technology for independent living. This page sets out, in plain English, where we stand against the NHS Digital Technology Assessment Criteria — clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability and accessibility — alongside our safeguarding and regulatory positioning. What is in place today, and what is in progress. We would rather show you an honest status than a polished claim.
Assistiv products are assistive, not diagnostic. They inform, signpost and support; they do not diagnose disease, treat any condition, or make autonomous clinical decisions. Wherever our tools generate information that may be useful to a health or care professional, that information is advisory, and assessment, diagnosis and treatment decisions always rest with qualified professionals. A human reviews every escalation. On this basis our products are not placed on the UK market as medical devices. We keep this position under continuous review as our products evolve and as MHRA guidance on software develops, and we will seek regulatory advice before introducing any feature with a medical purpose.
This is a deliberate design constraint, not an afterthought. It shapes what our tools claim, what they measure, and how their outputs are worded. Independence, safety and wellbeing are our intended purposes. Where a signal might prompt a clinical question, our job ends at suggesting a conversation with a GP, and the person decides whether to have it.
The ecosystem handles three very different kinds of information, and each layer is governed according to what it actually touches.
The intelligence layer is built entirely from published open data: NHS Fingertips, NHSBSA prescribing statistics, ONS Census, deprivation indices. It contains no patient identifiers and no personal data of any kind, so UK GDPR does not bite at this layer at all.
The voice-first screen uses validated, publicly documented questionnaires. It is a signposting conversation, not a clinical assessment: it produces information for the person, and a structured summary that the person chooses whether to share with their GP. Nothing is sent anywhere without their explicit agreement.
The home platform is built on a privacy architecture we consider stricter than the sector norm: raw sensor data is processed at the edge, inside the home, and never leaves it. Only derived insight scores are transmitted. There are no cameras and no wearables. The person controls what is monitored, what is shared and with whom, and every choice is reversible.
Where the home platform detects patterns that may indicate neglect, self-neglect or abuse, a defined escalation pathway applies, aligned to the Care Act 2014 and the Making Safeguarding Personal principles. Two rules are absolute: a human reviews every flag before anything happens, and the dignity of risk is respected, meaning adults are never overridden for convenience.
NHS organisations assess digital health tools against the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) — five areas covering clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability and accessibility. We have structured our assurance position around those five criteria so that commissioners can see, before any procurement conversation begins, exactly where we stand. Statuses are updated as work completes. We would rather show you an honest status than a polished claim.
Our products inform, signpost and support; they do not diagnose, treat, or make autonomous clinical decisions, and a human reviews every escalation. On this basis they are not placed on the UK market as medical devices, a position we keep under continuous review against MHRA software guidance.
The intelligence layer holds no personal data of any kind. The screening and home platform layers are consent-first: nothing is stored, transmitted or shared unless the person explicitly chooses it, and every consent is granular and revocable.
Our public platforms are static sites with no user accounts, no databases of personal information, and no stored credentials. The screening conversation is processed transiently and is not retained by Assistiv. This is a deliberately small attack surface, and we intend to certify it.
Screening produces a structured clinical referral — domain scores, minimisation notes and a CGA preparation brief — designed to be read by a frailty team today and consumed by clinical systems tomorrow. The intelligence layer is built entirely on open, published NHS and ONS datasets with documented provenance.
The screening tool is a spoken conversation precisely because tick-boxes and small print exclude many older adults. Voice-first design reduces barriers by default, but it does not exempt us from the standard: we are working towards WCAG 2.2 AA across the estate and publish our position openly.
If a status above matters to your organisation and you need detail or evidence — the DPIA draft, the methodology pack, or the clinical safety scoping — ask us: simon@assistiv.co.
Good governance includes people whose job is to disagree with us. Our advisory board brings social care outcomes measurement, quantitative research methods, nursing and ageing practice, and public administration into the room, and our intelligence platform ships with VERA, a built-in validator whose role is to argue against our own scores.
Creator of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit, used by councils across the UK and internationally. Former Director of the PSSRU.
Director of UCL's Quantitative Social Science Research Centre. Brings large-scale data methodology to our evidence base.
Retired nursing and ageing lecturer, active in older people's advocacy. Validated the three-state independence model that underpins our design.
Expert in government policy and public administration, advising on commissioning and policy landscapes.
Some lines are easier to hold when they are written down in public. Assistiv will not sell personal data. We will not install anything in a home without the person's explicit agreement, and we will not make removal difficult. We will not use cameras. We will not let an algorithm take a safeguarding action without a human decision. We will not describe modelled estimates as measurements, in our marketing or anywhere else. Where we fall short of any of these, we want to be told: simon@assistiv.co.